Palm Beach County · Florida

Boca Raton and the Palm Beach coast

Florida has one set of property tax rules and this county obeys all of them — the same exemption, the same Save Our Homes cap, the same taxes on the loan as the Orlando metro elsewhere on this site. What is different here is the Atlantic, and it shows up on the insurance line rather than the tax line. These are 24 municipalities from Boca Raton to Tequesta, each with its own hub and its own two calculators.

Side by side

All 24, sorted by distance from Boca Raton

Home values and rents are Zillow's indexes for June 2026. The millage column is what is actually charged — the countywide 12.2598 plus the municipality's own levy plus, where it applies, a fire district. The rate column is what a homesteaded buyer really pays after the exemption, and the last two columns are the two bills that arrive.

MunicipalityMilesTypical homeYear on yearMillageBuyer's rateTax a yearInsurance a year
Boca Raton0$575,479+0.7%17.00471.58%$9,094$6,600
Highland Beach · island3$914,455-1.2%15.84731.52%$13,857$10,200
Delray Beach7$342,429-2.8%18.45181.62%$5,554$6,600
Gulf Stream · island9$2,779,382+6.4%19.39031.91%$53,082$10,200
Golf11$3,092,441+6.7%22.26312.20%$67,892$6,600
Boynton Beach12$402,831-2.7%20.00981.79%$7,218$6,600
Ocean Ridge · island12$1,493,929+3.2%21.11792.05%$30,651$10,200
Hypoluxo14$299,192-7.7%18.91791.63%$4,872$6,600
Manalapan · island15$3,804,451+1.7%18.71791.85%$70,433$10,200
South Palm Beach · island16$373,219-5.1%19.11791.70%$6,337$10,200
Lake Worth Beach18$441,314-1.7%21.61241.95%$8,615$6,600
Greenacres19$281,651-4.3%18.55981.58%$4,457$6,600
Wellington24$658,112-0.6%18.18791.70%$11,218$6,600
Palm Beach · island24$2,145,595-1.0%14.87081.46%$31,321$10,200
West Palm Beach25$403,887-0.7%20.44861.83%$7,395$6,600
Royal Palm Beach26$486,0250.0%17.63791.61%$7,849$6,600
Riviera Beach29$408,733-1.3%20.60981.85%$7,551$6,600
Palm Beach Shores · island29$865,983+1.5%19.03881.81%$15,693$10,200
Lake Park31$410,395+2.3%20.81791.87%$7,661$6,600
North Palm Beach32$630,043-1.2%19.65981.84%$11,562$6,600
Palm Beach Gardens32$696,721+0.5%17.31351.63%$11,355$6,600
Jupiter40$702,538-1.3%16.37431.54%$10,843$6,600
Jupiter Inlet Colony · island41$3,873,710+0.4%21.27792.10%$81,519$10,200
Tequesta42$650,735-1.5%18.71931.75%$11,403$6,600

The insurance column is an estimate and the only estimate in the table — $6,600 a year on the mainland and $10,200 on the barrier islands, against a Palm Beach County average of about $6,600. It is not a municipal figure at all: what sets a premium here is roof age, construction, opening protection and flood zone, and the spread between two houses on the same street can be several multiples. It is in the table because leaving it out would make this coast look far cheaper than it is. Rents are on each municipality's page rather than here, because Zillow publishes no index for the seven smallest.

What the ocean actually costs

The same state, the same rules, twice the insurance

This site now carries two Florida layers measured identically — same exemption, same Save Our Homes cap, same documentary stamp and intangible taxes on the loan, same two Zillow indexes in the same month. The median effective property tax rate here is 1.79% against the Orlando metro's 1.53%, which is close enough to be uninteresting. The insurance is not: $6,600 a year on the mainland here and $10,200 on the barrier islands, against $3,720 inland at Orlando and about $2,160 in the Charlotte metro.

On a $500,000 house that is roughly $15,559 a year in tax and insurance on this coast against $11,365 in the Orlando metro — a difference of $4,194 a year for an identical house under identical tax law, seventy miles apart. That is the price of the Atlantic, and it is almost entirely an insurance number rather than a tax one.

8 of these 24 municipalities are wholly or mostly on the barrier island, east of the Intracoastal, where windstorm exposure is the highest in the state outside the Keys and flood cover is a separate compulsory policy on top. Those municipalities also hold most of the county's older oceanfront condominium stock, which since Florida's 2022 milestone inspection and structural reserve legislation has faced special assessments running into six figures per unit. If you are buying a condominium anywhere on this coast, the reserve study matters more than anything on this page.

The 3.46 mills that decide the rate table

Who runs their own fire department, and who pays the county for one

Palm Beach County levies a Fire/Rescue MSTU of 3.4581 mills on municipalities that contract the service from the county, and nothing at all on those running their own department. That single conditional is worth about a fifth of a total tax bill, and it is why the rate column here does not follow the municipal rate column at all: 12 of these 24 municipalities run their own fire departments and 11 pay the county. Jupiter does neither — it is served by its own Jupiter Fire/Rescue district at 1.7251 mills, unique in this county.

The clearest illustration is at the two ends of the price range. Palm Beach charges the lowest effective rate of these twenty-four at 1.46% and Golf the highest at 2.20% — and the difference between them is mostly the fire line and the size of the assessment base rather than anything either council decided about service levels. In dollars the spread is far wider than the rate suggests: $4,457 a year in Greenacres against $81,519 in Jupiter Inlet Colony, a factor of 18, because the cheapest rates and the most expensive houses are not in the same places. Greenacres at $281,651 and Jupiter Inlet Colony at $3,873,710 are both in this county.

Boca Raton itself is the most complicated stack on the table, and worth walking through because it shows every moving part at once. It runs its own fire department, so pays none of the county's 3.4581-mill MSTU; its own levy of 3.6649 — an operating rate plus a small debt levy — is low for a full-service city because the commercial base is large; and it then adds 1.0800 mills for the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District, which owns the beaches and parks and exists in no other municipality in Florida. Those, on top of the countywide 12.2598, come to 17.0047 mills — exactly the total the county property appraiser publishes — and a homesteaded buyer's rate of 1.58%.

Why the rate is not the millage

The homestead exemption, and the neighbour paying a fraction of your bill

Florida assesses at full market value and a purchase resets the assessment to the price, so unlike Ontario or North Carolina there is no assessment lag to correct for. What there is instead is an exemption that does not apply evenly: the first $25,000 of taxable value comes off for every taxing authority, and a second $25,000 comes off for all of them except the school district, which levies 6.3210 of the millage here. Every rate on this page derives that rather than quoting the headline — and the exemption is not automatic, so you file for it with the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy.

Then Save Our Homes. A homesteaded property's assessed value may rise no more than 3% a year, or the change in the consumer price index if that is lower, for as long as the same owner holds the exemption — and it resets to full market value the January after a sale. In a county where values have moved as far as this one's, that compounds into an enormous gap. The seller's tax bill is not a guide to yours, and if you are arriving from out of state you cannot port anything into it.

Two things this layer does not model, stated plainly. One county levy is deliberately not modelled here: the Palm Beach County Library District's 0.5491 mills, which applies in municipalities that have not opted out by running a library system of their own. On a $400,000 house that is about $220 a year. Where a municipality is in the district, the real bill is that much above the figure on this page. None of this includes a community development district assessment. A CDD is a special-purpose government that borrows to build a master-planned community's roads, drainage and amenities and repays the bonds through a non-ad-valorem line on your tax bill — commonly $1,200 to $3,000 a year in the newer parts of Florida. It is in no millage, it is not in any figure here, and it is the first thing to check on a new-build address. A third worth naming: a great many communities in this county carry a mandatory country club or golf membership attached to the deed, which can be a five-figure annual obligation entirely separate from anything here.

By part of the county

Five groupings, and none of them official

Palm Beach County publishes no sub-regions, so this grouping is editorial — built from the geography that actually decides an insurance premium, which is whether the address is on the barrier island, between the Intracoastal and I-95, or west of the interstate.

South county

Boca Raton The county's second city, with its own fire department, its own library and a beach district nobody else has. · Delray Beach The most walkable downtown in the county, and the lowest typical home value in south county.

The barrier islands

Highland Beach Three miles of barrier island between Boca and Delray, and a brand-new fire department. · Gulf Stream A thousand people, a Mizner golf club and a $2.8 million typical house. · Ocean Ridge A barrier-island town of nineteen hundred, paying 21 mills for county fire. · Manalapan Four hundred and forty-one people, ocean-to-Intracoastal lots, and a $3.8 million typical house. · South Palm Beach A quarter-mile of condominium towers on the island, and the highest rent in the layer relative to price. · Palm Beach The lowest tax rate in this layer, on the most valuable housing in it. · Palm Beach Shores The southern tip of Singer Island, thirteen hundred people, and its own fire department. · Jupiter Inlet Colony Four hundred and fifty-six people at the tip of Jupiter Island, and the highest home values here.

Central county

Golf Two hundred and seventy-three people, one country club, and the highest tax rate in this layer. · Boynton Beach The county's third-largest city, and the highest municipal rate among them. · Hypoluxo Three thousand people on the mainland side of the Intracoastal, at the cheapest tax bill here. · Lake Worth Beach A 1920s bungalow grid with its own electric utility, and the third-highest tax rate here. · Greenacres Inland, unglamorous and the cheapest tax bill of any full-size city in the county. · West Palm Beach The county seat and its largest city, with the second-highest municipal rate and a real downtown.

The western communities

Wellington The winter equestrian capital of the world, at the second-lowest municipal rate here. · Royal Palm Beach The lowest municipal rate in the county, on a 1959 speculative subdivision that grew up.

North county

Riviera Beach A working port and a marina district, at the second-highest total millage here. · Lake Park A 1920s Kelsey City plan, nine thousand people, and county fire on top of a high municipal rate. · North Palm Beach A 1950s waterfront village with its own country club, at a high municipal rate. · Palm Beach Gardens MacArthur's garden city, the PGA's home, and a low rate on high values. · Jupiter The lowest municipal rate of any full-size town here, and its own fire district. · Tequesta The northernmost municipality in the county, with its own fire department and its own water utility.

Palm Beach County has thirty-nine municipalities and this layer covers twenty-four. Left out are the ones whose fire arrangement could not be established from the county's own service map — guessing at a conditional worth 3.4581 mills was not an option — the handful with no Zillow index at all, and the Glades communities of Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay, which are forty miles inland on the far side of the Everglades Agricultural Area and are not part of this housing market in any sense.

Where these figures come from

Sources

Every millage component comes from the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's 2025 rate table, cross-checked against the Florida Department of Revenue's own comparison of levies. The stack is verified rather than assembled hopefully: the countywide base plus Boca Raton's municipal levy, its debt levy and the beach and park district comes to 17.0047 mills, which is exactly the total the appraiser publishes for the city. These are the figures on this page that are estimates:

  • Home insurance, which is the largest and least certain figure on these pages — $550 a month on the mainland and $850 on the barrier islands, against a Palm Beach County average of about $6,600 a year. It varies more by roof age, construction and flood zone than by municipality, and it is the one input worth replacing with a real quote before trusting any result
  • The county library levy of 0.5491 mills, which is not modelled at all — see the note on every page
  • The split of rent by bedroom count, derived by scaling each place's rent index by the same ratios the Orlando layer uses — the level is measured, the shape is assumed
  • The rent in the seven municipalities Zillow publishes no index for, which falls back to the median of the other seventeen
  • The condominium fee at $750 a month, which on this coast is a conservative figure and has been moving upward since Florida's 2022 reserve legislation
  • The utilities an owner pays over a renter, at $160 a month
  • Maintenance at 1% of the home's value a year
  • Every forward-looking rate: appreciation, rent growth, cost inflation and the return on the invested difference
  • And nothing at all for a community development district assessment, or for a mandatory club membership, both of which are common in this county

Nothing here is a listing, a lender quote or financial advice. Millage is set every September, exemptions are claimed by 1 March, and Florida's insurance market has moved further and faster than any other figure on this page. Confirm anything you plan to act on, and read the research and sourcing methodology for how the line between a fact and an assumption is drawn on this site.